Oldest Book in My Collection

The moon at 0600 hrs today at Laman Kambatik, Bintulu gave me the inspiration to unearth some more older books I have in my collection. It's going to be day break and the moon will soon disappear into the western horizon. Lo! Behold, let the books see the light of day.

61 Years Old

Edited by G.F. Maine, the above is a collection of quatrains by the famous Persian poet-philosopher, Omar Khayyam. The actual translation into English of the Rubaiyat ( collection of quatrains) of Omar Khayyam was done by Edward Fitzgerald in many editions, after intrepreting and reinterpreting them over his lifetime. This book contains Edward's First, Second and Fifth Editions of the Rubaiyat.

Published by Collins, London, in 1947 the book has 221 pages.

Below I quote the first and second quatrain in the Rubaiyat:

1

WAKE! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight

The Stars before him from the Field of Night,

Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes

The Sultan's Turret with the Shaft of Light.

2

Before the phantom of False morning died,

Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,

"When all the Temple is prepared within,

Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?"

And the first runner-up goes to:

60 Years Old

Published by the Shell Petroleum Company Ltd, London in 1948, the above is the Third Edition.

The book is a compilation by members of the Staff of the Royal Dutch Shell Group.

It is an excellent backgrounder to the general understandingof the World Petroleum Industry, its Production( Exploration/Production of Crude Oil and Natural Gas), Manufacture, Transport and Distribution and Products and Their Applications. The book has 658 pages.

The Beatles Are Coming to Bintulu

Rummaging my collection of old documents, books etc I stumbled upon a series of song books that were the main diet for English songs in the 1960's.

For those die-hard Beatles fans (like myself) and others out there, I would like to share the songs included in the three volumes of O.K. Hit Songs book released in 1966 which I bought in my younger days i.e. 42 years ago in Bintulu at which time I was in Form Three.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, the Beatles came to town. Check out whether the songs that you grew up with are included in the list below, bearing in mind that these were the earlier  days of the Beatlesmania. And I was still struggling with my guitar chords, English proficiency and voice chords to imitate the Beatles style then.

42 years old

Vol. 196-200 ( 1966)

(Songs are listed in alphabetical order)

A Hard Day's Night

All My Loving

And I Love Her

Anna

ATaste of Honey

Bad Boy

Can't Buy Me Love

Day Tripper

Dizzy Miss Lizzie

Do You Want to Know a Secret

Drive My Car

Eight Days a Week

From Me to You

Girl

Help

Hold Me Tight

 I Call Your Name

 I Feel Fine

If I Needed Someone

I'll Follow the Sun

 I'm Down

I'm Happy Just to Dance With You

In My Life

 I Saw Her Standing There

I Should Have Known Better

It Wont Be Long

I Want To Hold Your Hand

 Long Tall Sally

Love Me Do

Michelle

Misery

Mister Moonlight

Money

Norwegian Wood

Nowhere Man

Please Mr. Postman

Please, Please Me

P.S. I Love You

Rock and Roll Music

Run For Your Life

She Loves You

She's a Woman

Tell Me What You See

The Night Before

The Word

 Think For Yourself

This Boy

Ticket to Ride

Till There Was You

Twist and Shout

Want

We Can Work It Out

What Goes On

Words OF Love

 World Without Love

Yesterday

You Can't Do That

You Like Me Too Much

You're Going to Lose That Girl

You've Got To Hide Your Love Away

You Won't See Me

42 Years Old

Vol.201-205 ( 1966)

Paper Back Writer

Rain

42 Years Old

Vol. 206-210( 1966)

And Your Bird Can Sing

Doctor Robert

Drive My Car

Eight Days A Week

Eleanor Rigby

Feed The Birds

For No One

Good Day Sunshine

Got to Get You Into My Life

Here, There and Everywhere

I'm Only Sleepy

I Want To Tell Yo

Love You To

She Said She Said

Tomorrow Never Knows

Yellow Submarine

Note:

For the record, the O.K. Hit Songs book were sold by  Nyiap Mui Bookstore. And Nyiap Mui's advertisement in the 1961 Bintulu Centenary Celebrations sovenier programme book is shown below:

First Issue of Sarawak Historical Society

34 years old

You have to be a history geek to be interested in this issue. The Sarawak Historical Society was launched on Thursday,18th January,1973. It did not produce any journal issue in 1973 because it was busy recruiting members, lacking funds and no suitable articles to be published and not many willing contributors.

This first issue is therefore a collector's item.

But was interested me in this issue is a report of the society's activities, which mentioned that at the time of the issue publication, there was only one life member by the name of H.P. Buxton, from Bintulu at P.O. Box 59.

Books of Historical Value on Sarawak

Today is Sunday and I thought what a better way to spend than dust my old books.  What I found was a few books that I have kept for quite a while now. Among them are three described below:

50 years old

Ok, The center of the map is an Iban man, apparently not dressed. Bintulu is illustrated with the symbol of a log. Sabah is written as North Borneo on the map. These are the little things that interest me in this rare book in my collection.  As part of my lifelong learning hobby, I  like to keep odd, rare and historical value books, documents, photos, coins and stamps of Sarawak.  The above book or booklet for that matter,  is the oldest I have now about Sarawak, written in 1958 by .M.Jasni from North Borneo ( Sabah, then) and printed by Sinaran Bros. (Printers), Penang. What? from Penang?True. Interesting pictures inside the book are the Radio Sarawak Building and Lane No.1 Kuching among the very few. The book has only 22 pages.

40 years old

The above book is history written from the colonial perspective.  The book is used as a history text for primary school students before Malaysia and even a few years after.   First published in 1960, the edition I have is the second edition, 1968.  Having 80 pages, with lots of illustrations, maps and pictures. The author is Vernon Mullen. The book is published by Oxford University Press in association with Borneo Literature Bureau

39 years old

This Art book is an all time favourite of mine.  Written by Suzie Heinze in 1969 and published by the Borneo Literature Bureau, Kuching, Sarawak. In its 120 pages are packed vast information on drawing and painting, crafts restricted to flat paper, Ink and or Colour and Other Craft and Hadiwork, which has a list of 22 activities like mat making, batik, silk screen printing, beadwork, carving, mosaics, pottery, clay model, lithograph, etching, monotype, woodcuts, puppets weaving to mention but a few.